1. AP Comparative Government and Politics
Politics in China:
Comparative Politics: People’s Republic of China

2. CHINA

3. China’s neighbors: Mongolia, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Tajikstan, Krygystan, Kazakhstan, India, Nepal,
Bhutan, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea

4. China’s population = 1.3 billion
(the world’s most populous nation)
China has a unitary government that exerts control
over local subdivisions:
22 provinces
5 autonomous regions
4 municipalities
2 administrative districts: Hong Kong and Macao

5. Literacy rate: 91%
Life expectancy: 73
Pop. density: 364 mi sq

7. Country Bio: China Language: Religion: Population: Territory:
1, million
Territory:
3,705,386 sq. miles
Year of PRC Inauguration:
1949
Year of Current Constitution:
1982
Head of Party and State:
Hu Jintao
Head of Government:
Wen Jiabao
Language:
Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect)
Yue (Cantonese)
Wu (Shanghaiese)
Minbei (Fuzhou)
Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese)
Xiang
Gan
Hakka dialects
Minority languages
Religion:
Daoism (Taoism), Buddhist, Muslim 2-3%
Christian 1% (estimated)
Nota Bene: officially atheist

8. Background Mao Zedong 1949 Communist victory
Formally inaugurated the People’s Republic of China
Until his death in 1976, he was the chief architect and agitator for a project to lead an agrarian people to modernization, prosperity and communist utopia.
After his death
Successors rejected most of the revolutionary project; declaring it a failure essentially.
Launched new era of reform

9. Background New economic pragmatism Economic growth highest priority
Communist Party’s main assignment
Retreated from government’s direct administration of the economy
Superiority of capitalism
Socialist market economy
But have rejected political pluralism
Tolerates no challenge to the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power
Institutionalization in China
Promote more transparency, stability, and responsiveness
To encourage investment and innovation
Safeguard against arbitrary dictatorships and disruptive politics
Better crafted laws, new legality, more assertive representative assemblies, and popularly elected grassroots leaders

10. Current Policy Challenges
Political corruption, rural unrest, growing wealth gap, and severe pollution
Fostering economic growth and deliver a better material life for Chinese citizens
Economy has grown at a rate of nearly 10 percent per year since 1980
Economic success has not been costless
Corruption
Rural reform
Land not privately owned, but contracted for agricultural use by Chinese farmers
Farmers poorly compensated
Growing wealth gap
Public disturbances
China has thoroughly abandoned the strictures of communist ideology; experienced an awesome economic revolution.
Opened up political processes to most diversified inputs
But have also firmly suppressed organized challenges to the Communist Party

11. Historical Setting Confucianism
Conservative philosophy
Conceived of a society and the polity in terms of an ordered hierarchy of harmonious relationships
Imperial order to the Founding of the PRC
Nationalist Party: Guomindang – Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek
Republic of China:
Chinese Communist Party: CCP
Mao Zedong: “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”
History of the PRC:
Deng Xiaoping: “Socialism With Chinese Characteristics”
Lean to One Side
Great Leap Forward: 1957
Retreat from the Leap: 1958 “Hundred Flowers”
GPCR:

12. Social Conditions Huge population
World’s most populous country
Most live in the countryside, but now that is only 57% compared to 85% in 1980
Rural industrialization and growth of towns
Rural collective industry is the most dynamic industrial sector
The population is concentrated in the eastern third of the land
Only ¼ of China’s land is arable
Land shortage/reduction in cultivated area
Land is used for property borders, burial grounds, and bigger houses.
So the problem of feeding the large population is expected to continue
China is a multiethnic state
92 percent of Chinese are ethnically Han, but there are fifty-five recognized ethnic minorities, ranging in number from a few thousand to more than 16 million.
Tibet and Xinjiang (unrest)

13. Structure of the Party State
Design Features
Guardianship
Describes the main relationship between the Communist Party and society
Representation of “historical best interests”
Mass line
Party Organization
Democratic centralism – Leninist principle
Refers mainly to consultation: opportunities for discussion, criticism, and proposals in party organizations
Two Hierarchies, with Party Leadership
Division of labor between party-state and government structures

14. Structure of the Party State: Government Structures
National People’s Congress (NPC) – legislative
Elected for five-year terms by delegates in provincial-level congresses and the armed forces
Assemble once annually for a plenary session of about two weeks
Always large body
Formally has extensive powers: amendment of the constitution, passage and amendment of legislation, approval of economic plans,etc.
Is it a rubber-stamp assembly? Was during Maoist years, but now….
It is still too large and meets too infrequently, but the lawmaking role of the less cumbersome NPC Standing Committee seems to be gaining.

16. Structure of the Party State
State Council-executive functions
Composed the premier, who is head of government, and his cabinet of vice-premiers, state councillors, ministers, auditor general, and secretary general
Has its own Standing Committee, which meets twice weekly
As in most parliamentary systems, the bulk of legislation is drafted by specialized ministries and commissions under the direction of the cabinet
President- Head of State – purely ceremonial office
Communist Party Leadership
Judiciary:
Supreme People’s Court
Supreme People’s Procuratorate
Bridge between public security agencies and the courts

17. Structure of the Party State
Party Structures
National Party Congress
Central Committee
Exercises the powers of the congress between sessions
Chinese political elites
Politburo
Politburo Standing Committee
Top Leader and the Succession Problem
Party Bureaucracy

20. Structure of the Party State
People’s Liberation Army
Does not dictate policy to party leaders, but it is the self-appointed guardian of Chinese sovereignty and nationalism.
Preventing Taiwan’s independence
Party Dominance
Nomenklatura system
The most important mechanism by which the Communist Party exerts control over officials.
Party membership
Party Core Groups
Overlapping Directorships
Elite Recruitment
Rule by Law
Socialist Legality
Legal Reform
Criticism of Legal Practices

21. Political Socialization
Mass Media
Ordinary citizens now exposed to news and opinions about public affairs
Hong Kong
Relatively free and critical mass media
Chinese journalists expose government wrongdoings and thwart official efforts to suppress news of disasters.
Chinese leaders reserve the right to shut down publications that in their view go too far.
Internet: 50,000 cyber police; still difficult to monitor
Education System
Past: very ideological; persecution of scholars
Today: respect for expertise
Fall 2006 reduced the seven compulsory courses on political ideology and party history to four, in the first major curricular change in twenty-five years.

22. Political Culture
From radicalism to “reform and opening” to the outside world
Political Knowledge
Not uniformly distributed in China
More active knowledge and interest found in men, the more highly educated, and Chinese with higher incomes.
Beijing
Here people discuss politics very frequently
Political Values
Reject every democratic value and support for democratic values generally low
Influence of non-Chinese political socialization is evident
Show an impact of socioeconomic development; urban Chinese are much more supportive of democratic values than are mainland Chinese generally

24. Political Participation
Changes in the Rules
Political participation: was required; now optional
Mao: mass mobilization campaign; contemporary leadership does not attempt to rouse the mass public to realize policy objectives
Rejection of mass mobilization as the dominant mode of political participation
Rather: express opinions and participate through regular, official channels – hotlines, letters to newspaper editors, etc.
Local Congress Elections
Village Committees
Unacceptable Political Participation
Protestors and Reformers
Democracy Movement
Tiananmen massacre of June 4, 1989

26. Interest Articulation and Aggregation
Organizations Under Party Leadership
Satellite parties
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
Important mass organizations
All-China Federation of Trade Unions
Women’s Federation
Mass organizations represent the interests of the Communist Party to the organized “interest groups” it dominates, not vice versa.
Transmission belts

27. Interest Articulation and Aggregation
NGOs
Nongovernmental organizations
Most active in environmental issues
Seek embeddedness
All-Chinese Women’s Federation: responsible for more than 3,000 social organizations dealing with women’s issues
GONGOs
Government-organized nongovernmental organizations
Front operations for government agencies
Set up to take advantage of the interest of foreign governments and international NGOs to support the emergence of Chinese civil society.
Most interesting: business associations set up to organize firms
The Self-Employed Laborers Association
The Private Enterprises Association
Federation of Industry and commerce

28. Policymaking and Implementation
Three tiers in policymaking
Politburo and its Standing Committee
Leading small groups (LSGs)
Relevant party departments and government ministries
From agenda setting to implementing regulations
Five stages: agenda setting; inter-agency review; Politburo approval; NPC review, debate, and passage; and the drafting of implementing regulations
Two most important states: interagency review and drafting of implementing regulations
Policy implementation
Monitoring
Policy priorities
Adapting policy to local conditions
Corruption

30. Policy Performance Economic Growth Environmental Degradation
Success story; opening up to foreign trade and investment
Trade balances
Scarcity prices versus government controlled or two-track pricing system
Decentralization
Reform of SOEs
Environmental Degradation
Economic growth = serious environmental damage
Health and productivity costs
“first development, then environment”
EPBs local environmental protection bureaus
State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA)
Underfunded

33. Policy Performance Population Control Policy implementation
Little regulation during Maoist years; 1978 population close to a billion
One-child family policy
State-sponsored family planning added to the constitution
Ideal family had one child
Most couples required to stop childbearing after one or two births
Married couples in urban areas restricted to one child
In rural areas, married couples are subject to rules that differ across provinces. In some, two children permitted. In others, only one child permitted; in most provinces, a second child is permitted only if the first is a girl.
Difficult to implement; many sons ideal: a married daughter joins the household of her husband, while a married son remains in the household to support aging parents.
Policy implementation
Carrots and sticks utilized to encourage one child policy
Perverse outcomes
Shortage of girls
Sex-selective abortions

35. Hong Kong
1842 and 1860, the island of Hong Kong, and adjacent territory on the Chinese mainland, were ceded by treaty to the British in perpetuity.
Due to result of wars fought to impose trade on China
For nearly a century, China was a British colony.
1984, the Chinese communist authorities elaborated the principle of “one country, two systems” applicable to Hong Kong after 1997
Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 but would continue to enjoy a “high degree of autonomy.”
Chinese authorities hope the outcome will woo Taiwan back to the PRC, too.

36. Taiwan
Governed by the Nationalists as the Republic of China since 1945
100 miles off the east coast of the Chinese mainland.
Communist “liberation” of Taiwan
Korean war; American interests in the security of Taiwan
Two major events affected Taiwan’s status
Lost its membership in the U.N. and its seat on the Security Council to China in 1971
U.S. recognized China diplomatically, downgrading the relationship with Taiwan to one of unofficial liaison
Today fewer than 30 countries recognize Taiwan.
Taiwan’s public does not support unification.

37. China’s Political Future
Still primarily a communist state
Room for optimism?
The dramatic changes in the Chinese economy, polity, and society, are as much a by-product of reform as a direct product of reform policies.
Authoritarianism has not survived intact with economic modernization in many East Asian countries.
Prediction: The party will continue to transform China in the years to come and to transform itself in order to continue to rule.

38. China’s History
China is the world's oldest continuous civilization, with a history characterized by repeated divisions and reunifications amid alternating periods of peace and war, and violent dynastic change. Power was generally concentrated in the hands of the emperor, but sometimes shifted to powerful officials or regional warlords. The country's territorial extent varied according to its shifting fortunes.
In 1912, the Republic of China attempted to establish itself as a representative democracy, but immediately collapsed into a one-party dictatorship under the Nationalist Party.
In 1949, Mao Zedong and the Communists took control of the mainland and Chiang Kai-shek and the ROC moved to Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China has continued to operate as a totalitarian one-party state to the present.

39. Mao Zedong implemented the and manufacturing sectors.
“Great Leap Forward”
to modernize
China’s agriculture
and manufacturing sectors.

40. Mao’s 1960s “Cultural Revolution” sought to purge China of the
“four olds”--old thoughts, old culture,
old habits, and old customs.

41. Mao’s dedicated Red Guards attacked and
bullied teachers, intellectuals,
and anyone who seemed to lack
the spirit of his revolution.

42. Deng Xiaoping came to power after Mao’s death in 1976
loosened government’s strict control over economy
encouraged some forms of private enterprise
tolerated NO political dissent
his reaction to student protests for democracy
outraged the world in 1989

43. Democracy in China? Tragedy of Tiananmen Square
Throughout the 1980s, Deng
Xiaoping, the Communist leader of China, worked toward liberalizing China both politically and economically. As the world’s most populous nation apparently moved
closer to democracy, the free world looked on hopefully.
Deng’s reform program led to a popular desire for more. In the Spring of 1989, students and other pro-democracy groups demonstrated in a number of Chinese cities. The focal point of the demonstrations was in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, where the world media covered the ongoing nonviolent protests. Unarmed soldiers were sent into the crowd at Tiananmen in an effort to disperse the demonstration peacefully. Pelted by rocks, the troops retreated, only to return--this time with tanks. The protesters escalated the violence, assaulting the tanks with rocks and Molotov cocktails. This time, the army opened fire. As many as 1,000 protesters were killed. The pro-democracy dream was bloodied, not killed.

44. Chinese Government Head of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) =
General Secretary of the Politburo (aka President)
Currently, Ho Jintao (took office after Jiang Zemin stepped down in 2003)
elected by the National People’s Congress for a 5-year term
State Council = cabinet leaders
headed by a Premier who is nominated by
the President and confirmed by the
Central Committee of the CCP
National People’s Congress
unicameral body
3,000 deputies elected to 5-year terms
Supreme People’s Court
judges appointed by NPC

45. Chinese Government Communist constitution formally adopted in 1954
not intended to be fundamental
law--meant to reflect the
current government’s policies
most recent constitution adopted
in 1982
universal suffrage at 18

46. China’s Economy “communist” system
centralized planning with market-oriented reforms
GDP per capita = $4,400
economic goals:
- to industrialize and modernize
- adopt standard market practices
- increase production (export-led economy)
- investment in technology
- increase standard of living and alleviate poverty

47. Trade partners:
US, Japan, Russia, and other industrializing nations in Asia
International Organizations:
UN, APEC, WTO (since 2000)
WMDs:
China has WMDs but signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty
in 1992 and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996

48. China-U.S. Relations no formal diplomatic relations between the
two nations from
1972, President Richard Nixon visited China,
beginning a period of “constructive engagement”
diplomatic relations continued to improve after
the Cold War ended in
despite criticism of China’s poor human rights
record, the US granted China “most favored
nation” status in 2000
today US-China relations are excellent…politically,
economically, and culturally

49. Issues facing the current government:
stabilizing population growth
autonomous Taiwan?
re-asserting control over Hong Kong (1999)
control of Tibet since 1959
continued economic growth
continue improving human rights record
granting more individual freedoms
curbing human trafficking
MODERNIZATION--preparing for the
2008 Olympics in Beijing